Epic Splashes Fortnite Millions Luring Game Developers to Ditch Steam

Inviting the wrath of diehard Steam fans, Epic Games continues to snap up Epic Store exclusives by throwing millions at developers.

[Question_Mark]

Epic can’t compete with Steam at all, so why not buy their way to popularity? It reminds me of a spoiled rich kid using daddy’s money to buy shortcuts to things everyone else has to work hard for, then bragging about how cool they are while doing none of the work.

[DarkOcelet]

Well tbh, the only thing Epic did by making the games exclusive for a year is making me start working on the massive backlog I have on Steam so for me, its a win/win situation as I will be able to purchase all those games a year or two later for dirt cheap on Steam AND clear quite a bit of the games on my backlog lol. So well done Epic for wasting your Fortnite money.

[KaaF]

Ah, steam fanboys coming up with their head cannon. They are both multi billion companies, but keep up the nice fan fiction.

[Reefskye]

Ah, Epic Fanboys... oh look it works the same way. Criticising Epics business model does not make you a steam fanboy.

Think you will find every PC gamer uses more than one launcher difference is Epic doesn't make enough games to justify a launcher like Uplay or Origin, so they use anti consumer practises under the guise of "better for developers". So keep up your fan fiction of everyone who dislikes epic is being a fanboy

[SephirothX21]

@Reefsky
It's not anti-consumer practice, it's business and Epic just gave 1.5 million dollars to the blender foundation with no strings attached. Epic have put in the work. They make one of the most popular and high performance game engines in the world. They offer reduced royalties for developers and they have been working on the store for years. Steam take a 30 percent cut from developers. Epic give you a free engine with 12% royalty for their store. People can vote with their money if they're so upset.

[Reefskye]

Well if you see my comments you will see i actually gave epic credit for giving blender that money, other publishers can learn from that. My point is why should i or anyone download Epic's launcher because they used money to get a game tout how amazing they are to developers, yet do any of them give you any sort of better deal? No they don't, they give you a below par launcher with hardly any games. The only reason anyone has to use it because they have no other choice.

If you wanted to support the developer you would buy your games from GoG even CD project Red have said they get all the profits, So why should i buy from Epic they offer a worse deal than GoG limit consumer choice, So if you really wanted to support developers people would use GoG all the time but they don't because no one actually cares. It's just a shady practise for Epic to get their foot in the door because they don't make enough games to juisfty actually having a store front. Limiting my choice is anti consumer.

[PapaBop]

What are you waffling on about? Not once did he even praise Steam but as he is criticising Epic naturally that makes him a Steam fanboy. Also Steam is a big part as to why Valve have so much money... they didn't buy their way to success with Steam, they earned it.

[MadLad]

Love that people still want to feign being dense to the fact this isn't Steam fanboyism - GoG, Gamersgate, Greenman, Humble all have a lucrative, if smaller, chunk of the market and all offer unique elements to their store - with Gog's updating of old games for new hardware and being drm free, Gamersgate acquiring rights to obscure titles many of the other stores don't bother with and offering a point system for free content, Greenman often times offering large discounts for pre-orders and allowing resales back to them, and Humble with a large backlog of games at a per month cost as well as the monthly bundle.

What does EPIC offer?
Wee bot deh excloosiv!!

[nyu1]

Come on now, you don't have to be a Steam fanboy to dislike the way Epic is doing things.

[bluefox755]

Why can't they compete? Steam has gotten a bit complacent in recent years, with it's only real competition coming from publishers like EA and Ubisoft. You're crazy if you think they don't view them as competition. This is a good thing. While I don't want to have a million launchers, I want the few I do have to use to be good, and competition makes that happen. I don't see why people are getting so bent out of shape, it's not like with consoles where you have to buy another console to have access to the exclusives, you just download their dumb launcher.

[Silly gameAr]

ccn knows just what clickbaity headlines to use for their articles.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Steam vs Epic. I want steam to improve and mess up Epic

[ocelot07]

I couldn't care less it's only a game launcher. Providing the game works as intended when I install it I don't care what store I get my game from.

[CBaoth]

sometimes though you have stand up for principles. I find it amusing that console gamers have had to combat silly third party exclusive deals for a decade but somehow now it's acceptable on PC? That's the 800 lb gorilla in the room.

[nyu1]

"That's the 800 lb gorilla in the room."

Except it's exclusivity to a launcher. So more like an 8 pound gorilla.

It's so trivial 99% of the time... it is a joke, yet people keep whining like it's the end of the world. In practice, for the consumer, how on earth is it any different from playing games on Origin or something ? It isn't. It's all based on 'principle' despite the fact that it makes little to no difference to the consumer experience the vast majority of the time.

[bluefox755]

Same. I get it with the console fanboys, you want to justify your investment, but with the launchers? I fail to see how competition hurts any of us.

[CBaoth]

Because they're not competing, understand? Improving your store with requested features is competing. Offering incentives and cutbacks for using UE4 is competing. Offering reduced royalties to entice developers is competing. Offering preferential storefront placement and marketing assistance to smaller devs is competing. Know what's NOT competing? Buying exclusivity because you can't compete....on an open platform!?! Not only is it shady but downright pathetic. I hope CDR sell 30 million copies of Cyberpunk and start ruffling Tim Sweeney's feathers. That would be Epic

[MadLad]

If they would just offer a competent store, stop their buy-out crap, and offer competitive deals, I'd have the thing downloaded.

Hell. Here's an idea ..
Take your mountain of Fortnite riches .... AND FUND YOUR OWN INDIES AND EXCLUSIVES INTERNALLY!

[lelo2play]

What happens when Fortnite money ends?

[franwex]

The idea is that hopefully they develop a revenue stream by the epic store to replace that.

[rainslacker]

They'll still be raking in millions on their game engine. And probably from their store. Eventually, these exclusive deals will probably not be as much of a thing, if they do them at all.

[doritos]

That headline needs help.

[Miacosa]

Competition is good.

[Cmoney007]

Epic: We will continue to buy out developers on our pretty crappy store. Why would we need to improve it? We are the future!
Valve: We don’t need to worry about Epic because Steam has so many basic features that the Epic Store continues to lack. Epic has exclusive deals on some games, but they will be back on Steam in about six months or a year and still sell a lot of copies.